How does it actually harm these developers though, that distro maintainers are putting in custom themes? Couldn't they simply refuse to spend time fixing them and require the maintainer to make...
How does it actually harm these developers though, that distro maintainers are putting in custom themes? Couldn't they simply refuse to spend time fixing them and require the maintainer to make the theme work for the program? But for that matter, shouldn't GTK apps be theme agnostic in the first place???
It's not great for the app developer's reputation if the out of the box UX on a given distro is clunky or broken, and I don't blame them for preferring to keep that reputation in their own hands...
It's not great for the app developer's reputation if the out of the box UX on a given distro is clunky or broken, and I don't blame them for preferring to keep that reputation in their own hands rather than trusting the maintainer with it. More generally, good design work is hard and I can quite see how disheartening it would be to see that compromised, even with the best of intentions.
I think the site set the right tone: it's not shouting or demanding, just saying "please don't make the decisions to change things on behalf of the users".
Where should the design work be done, though? At the framework level or the app level or both? Linux users are historically accustomed to having control over everything about their systems,...
Where should the design work be done, though? At the framework level or the app level or both? Linux users are historically accustomed to having control over everything about their systems, including the affordance to change their themes and look/feel of the GUI. It sounds like this is coming from the perspective of designers complaining that they want the right to override user preference. If they think users don’t have the right to make aesthetic decisions about their GUI software, I think they should probably spend their time developing and designing apps on platforms like macOS, iOS, or Windows where there are prescribed and cohesive design guidelines and frameworks which users expect. On Linux I think this is going hard against the grain, and users are not likely to want to cede control of their systems to 3rd parties when it comes to customization.
From the linked page: They're requesting that distributions supply the applications as designed, and to allow the users to customise at will. The app makers design carefully for a specific use...
From the linked page:
This is aimed at distributions breaking apps by default, not tinkerers playing with their own setup.
They're requesting that distributions supply the applications as designed, and to allow the users to customise at will. The app makers design carefully for a specific use case, and the users customise carefully for their own use case; the only problem here is the distributors making blunt system-wide changes that can't possibly be as well tuned as those made by the user or app developer.
On Linux I think this is going hard against the grain, and users are not likely to want to cede control of their systems to 3rd parties when it comes to customization.
On that, you're in agreement with both myself and the authors! They explicitly say that they could solve the problem by ignoring external styling entirely, but they'd rather not because that would take away user customisability.
But isn’t this the fundamental problem with the Linux ecosystem? There are too many 'defaults'—each distribution is different and opinionatedly so. How can you unite an inherently fragmented...
This is aimed at distributions breaking apps by default
But isn’t this the fundamental problem with the Linux ecosystem? There are too many 'defaults'—each distribution is different and opinionatedly so. How can you unite an inherently fragmented ecosystem?
If the Linux developer trying to create a GUI app concedes that users should have control and be afforded customization, why shouldn’t distributions? Don’t the distributors have the exact same issues of branding and consistency as the app developers? This seems like an insurmountable 3-way tension between developers, users, and distributors.
Edit: I should say, there’s actually one way I can see surmounting this, which is distros like elementary OS which go out of their way to make a consistent DE and their own apps and adhere to their HIG, but most distros are not going to bother to go that route.
Because defaults matter. If by default my application is broken then the user would likely put it on the developer, not the distribution. GNOME does have this too. We have the GNOME HIG and we...
why shouldn’t distributions?
Because defaults matter. If by default my application is broken then the user would likely put it on the developer, not the distribution.
Edit: I should say, there’s actually one way I can see surmounting this, which is distros like elementary OS which go out of their way to make a consistent DE and their own apps and adhere to their HIG, but most distros are not going to bother to go that route.
GNOME does have this too. We have the GNOME HIG and we have the Adwaita stylesheet which literally means : "The truth is one; not dual". The problem is distros change this so it's impossible for developers to deal with.
I understand it’s potentially problematic for devs if distro maintainers do this, but shouldn’t distro maintainers have the right to change the look and feel of their distro? If not, what would...
The problem is distros change this so it's impossible for developers to deal with.
I understand it’s potentially problematic for devs if distro maintainers do this, but shouldn’t distro maintainers have the right to change the look and feel of their distro? If not, what would you advocate? Some kind of one-size-fits-all Linux distro that all should target? I don’t see how that’s feasible.
I think distros should use Adwaita and Adwaita-dark for GTK programs, feel free to modify the shell and give extensions if they want. If then the users think they want to change GTK theme, they...
I think distros should use Adwaita and Adwaita-dark for GTK programs, feel free to modify the shell and give extensions if they want.
If then the users think they want to change GTK theme, they can feel free to do so and distro maintainers can sponsor certain themes but the default experience should be Adwaita since it's what developers are expecting to be used. Then, when they change their theme by their own volition, they can see that their choice broke certain programs and they know why.
It must be exhausting to keep getting bug reports for your software when it's someone else's theme that is causing the problems. Some people are pretty entitled and they'll be complaining...
It must be exhausting to keep getting bug reports for your software when it's someone else's theme that is causing the problems. Some people are pretty entitled and they'll be complaining vociferously about your shitty software and your refusal to fix it.
I maintain a very small open source project in my spare time. One of the hardest things I face is "bug" reports from people who (ab)use my software in ways that I never anticipated or intended....
I maintain a very small open source project in my spare time. One of the hardest things I face is "bug" reports from people who (ab)use my software in ways that I never anticipated or intended. Often times this goes as far as them using the software in ways that I've explicitly warned against. The vast majority of users don't know or care why something doesn't work; they just want it to work. I can't even begin to imagine how much more frustrating this must be to deal with when your software isn't working because some third party modified it.
It's not as simple as refusing to spend time on bugs you don't care about. You also have to either ignore all of the bug reports (which can make the project appear to be unmaintained) or take time to answer every single person and explain why you aren't going to fix the thing they reported.
Frankly, open source is exhausting and I hope I never have the misfortune to release an open source project that is actually popular. Anyone who redistributes open source code in any way should be extremely mindful of the effects their actions can have on upstream maintainers.
As a user, I appreciate that most apps on my system share a common theme. The patchwork of individual developer tastes doesn't look good and is visually distracting. So I think theming can be a...
As a user, I appreciate that most apps on my system share a common theme. The patchwork of individual developer tastes doesn't look good and is visually distracting.
So I think theming can be a good thing. It's also what open-source is for. I don't doubt, though, that some things could be done better, such as make it clearer to end users that they are using a patched applications and that issues may not be the original developer's fault.
Adwaita is a common theme. It's the default theme for GNOME. Distros just change it. Open source is about breaking applications?..
As a user, I appreciate that most apps on my system share a common theme. The patchwork of individual developer tastes doesn't look good and is visually distracting.
Adwaita is a common theme. It's the default theme for GNOME. Distros just change it.
So I think theming can be a good thing. It's also what open-source is for.
You can do that. Always could. The developer doesn't need to support it for that to be true. Even so, that's not what the open letter is about, it's about distros which break applications by...
You can do that. Always could. The developer doesn't need to support it for that to be true.
Even so, that's not what the open letter is about, it's about distros which break applications by default by doing it. If you want to use a theme that breaks everything, do it. But don't make it default.
I think it's ok for people to be upset about distros theming their stuff. I've never used one that does, but they probably exist somewhere. I think if you package something patched it's...
I think it's ok for people to be upset about distros theming their stuff. I've never used one that does, but they probably exist somewhere. I think if you package something patched it's irresponsible unless you make it obvious where the support request should go.
I also think this is a technical problem. Themes exist for a reason. People want to change them because they dislike the defaults that ship. You want people to stop changing the themes? Make a light and a dark default theme that is so good 99% of people won't want anything else.
Look and feel continuity is crucial for a seamless user experience, and one of the biggest reasons why people lock in to Windows or Mac. The fact *nix developers continue to fuck up basic desktop...
Look and feel continuity is crucial for a seamless user experience, and one of the biggest reasons why people lock in to Windows or Mac.
The fact *nix developers continue to fuck up basic desktop design principles like this is why I feel justified in my belief that there will never, ever, be a mainstream *nix desktop (unless you count OSX).
I'm not clear who are you saying is fucking this up - the application developers or the ones doing the theming? I'd say in this case it's the latter: the application developers are specifically...
I'm not clear who are you saying is fucking this up - the application developers or the ones doing the theming?
I'd say in this case it's the latter: the application developers are specifically saying "They are built and tested for the upstream GNOME stylesheet, icons, and fonts, so that’s what they should look like on peoples’ systems", the same way they would for the standard look and feel on Windows or OSX, but the theme developers are presenting a moving (and fragmented) target.
Look at Windows and Mac theme changes and personalisations - the user changes them, and apps are mandated to work with them - whatever icons or colour schemes are selected. It's not an issue with...
Look at Windows and Mac theme changes and personalisations - the user changes them, and apps are mandated to work with them - whatever icons or colour schemes are selected. It's not an issue with apps on those environments, because the expectation is there that they DO need to support that whether they want to or not. These app developers want to make it work for the default and complain when it fails under personalisation?
And it's not even user controlled personalisation either, but standard distributions (like you might see in changes from Windows XP to 7 to 8 to 10?). Might as well be a web developer who only wants things to work on Opera. They should go back to terminal apps if they don't actually want to do GUIs properly.
That doesn't strike me as an apples-to-apples comparison (no pun intended). Windows only really changes design as part of the major release cycle, and provides detailed style guides well in...
That doesn't strike me as an apples-to-apples comparison (no pun intended). Windows only really changes design as part of the major release cycle, and provides detailed style guides well in advance; OSX is even stricter, changes even less, and even now allows just a single toggle between light and dark mode.
The top level complaint is about distros injecting whole new stylesheets, which is a radically different thing. It's not making sites that only work with Opera, it's politiely asking Chrome not to override your CSS with an arbitrary replacement of their own devising.
How does it actually harm these developers though, that distro maintainers are putting in custom themes? Couldn't they simply refuse to spend time fixing them and require the maintainer to make the theme work for the program? But for that matter, shouldn't GTK apps be theme agnostic in the first place???
It's not great for the app developer's reputation if the out of the box UX on a given distro is clunky or broken, and I don't blame them for preferring to keep that reputation in their own hands rather than trusting the maintainer with it. More generally, good design work is hard and I can quite see how disheartening it would be to see that compromised, even with the best of intentions.
I think the site set the right tone: it's not shouting or demanding, just saying "please don't make the decisions to change things on behalf of the users".
Where should the design work be done, though? At the framework level or the app level or both? Linux users are historically accustomed to having control over everything about their systems, including the affordance to change their themes and look/feel of the GUI. It sounds like this is coming from the perspective of designers complaining that they want the right to override user preference. If they think users don’t have the right to make aesthetic decisions about their GUI software, I think they should probably spend their time developing and designing apps on platforms like macOS, iOS, or Windows where there are prescribed and cohesive design guidelines and frameworks which users expect. On Linux I think this is going hard against the grain, and users are not likely to want to cede control of their systems to 3rd parties when it comes to customization.
From the linked page:
They're requesting that distributions supply the applications as designed, and to allow the users to customise at will. The app makers design carefully for a specific use case, and the users customise carefully for their own use case; the only problem here is the distributors making blunt system-wide changes that can't possibly be as well tuned as those made by the user or app developer.
On that, you're in agreement with both myself and the authors! They explicitly say that they could solve the problem by ignoring external styling entirely, but they'd rather not because that would take away user customisability.
But isn’t this the fundamental problem with the Linux ecosystem? There are too many 'defaults'—each distribution is different and opinionatedly so. How can you unite an inherently fragmented ecosystem?
If the Linux developer trying to create a GUI app concedes that users should have control and be afforded customization, why shouldn’t distributions? Don’t the distributors have the exact same issues of branding and consistency as the app developers? This seems like an insurmountable 3-way tension between developers, users, and distributors.
Edit: I should say, there’s actually one way I can see surmounting this, which is distros like elementary OS which go out of their way to make a consistent DE and their own apps and adhere to their HIG, but most distros are not going to bother to go that route.
Because defaults matter. If by default my application is broken then the user would likely put it on the developer, not the distribution.
GNOME does have this too. We have the GNOME HIG and we have the Adwaita stylesheet which literally means : "The truth is one; not dual". The problem is distros change this so it's impossible for developers to deal with.
I understand it’s potentially problematic for devs if distro maintainers do this, but shouldn’t distro maintainers have the right to change the look and feel of their distro? If not, what would you advocate? Some kind of one-size-fits-all Linux distro that all should target? I don’t see how that’s feasible.
I think distros should use Adwaita and Adwaita-dark for GTK programs, feel free to modify the shell and give extensions if they want.
If then the users think they want to change GTK theme, they can feel free to do so and distro maintainers can sponsor certain themes but the default experience should be Adwaita since it's what developers are expecting to be used. Then, when they change their theme by their own volition, they can see that their choice broke certain programs and they know why.
It must be exhausting to keep getting bug reports for your software when it's someone else's theme that is causing the problems. Some people are pretty entitled and they'll be complaining vociferously about your shitty software and your refusal to fix it.
I maintain a very small open source project in my spare time. One of the hardest things I face is "bug" reports from people who (ab)use my software in ways that I never anticipated or intended. Often times this goes as far as them using the software in ways that I've explicitly warned against. The vast majority of users don't know or care why something doesn't work; they just want it to work. I can't even begin to imagine how much more frustrating this must be to deal with when your software isn't working because some third party modified it.
It's not as simple as refusing to spend time on bugs you don't care about. You also have to either ignore all of the bug reports (which can make the project appear to be unmaintained) or take time to answer every single person and explain why you aren't going to fix the thing they reported.
Frankly, open source is exhausting and I hope I never have the misfortune to release an open source project that is actually popular. Anyone who redistributes open source code in any way should be extremely mindful of the effects their actions can have on upstream maintainers.
As a user, I appreciate that most apps on my system share a common theme. The patchwork of individual developer tastes doesn't look good and is visually distracting.
So I think theming can be a good thing. It's also what open-source is for. I don't doubt, though, that some things could be done better, such as make it clearer to end users that they are using a patched applications and that issues may not be the original developer's fault.
Adwaita is a common theme. It's the default theme for GNOME. Distros just change it.
Open source is about breaking applications?..
No, it's about customizing things without having to ask for permission.
You can do that. Always could. The developer doesn't need to support it for that to be true.
Even so, that's not what the open letter is about, it's about distros which break applications by default by doing it. If you want to use a theme that breaks everything, do it. But don't make it default.
I think it's ok for people to be upset about distros theming their stuff. I've never used one that does, but they probably exist somewhere. I think if you package something patched it's irresponsible unless you make it obvious where the support request should go.
I also think this is a technical problem. Themes exist for a reason. People want to change them because they dislike the defaults that ship. You want people to stop changing the themes? Make a light and a dark default theme that is so good 99% of people won't want anything else.
I'd argue that the default Adwaita and Adwaita-dark themes are that good but clearly people disagree.
Adwaita was "nice" but very very bland before its 3.32 update. Now it's good.
Look and feel continuity is crucial for a seamless user experience, and one of the biggest reasons why people lock in to Windows or Mac.
The fact *nix developers continue to fuck up basic desktop design principles like this is why I feel justified in my belief that there will never, ever, be a mainstream *nix desktop (unless you count OSX).
I'm not clear who are you saying is fucking this up - the application developers or the ones doing the theming?
I'd say in this case it's the latter: the application developers are specifically saying "They are built and tested for the upstream GNOME stylesheet, icons, and fonts, so that’s what they should look like on peoples’ systems", the same way they would for the standard look and feel on Windows or OSX, but the theme developers are presenting a moving (and fragmented) target.
Look at Windows and Mac theme changes and personalisations - the user changes them, and apps are mandated to work with them - whatever icons or colour schemes are selected. It's not an issue with apps on those environments, because the expectation is there that they DO need to support that whether they want to or not. These app developers want to make it work for the default and complain when it fails under personalisation?
And it's not even user controlled personalisation either, but standard distributions (like you might see in changes from Windows XP to 7 to 8 to 10?). Might as well be a web developer who only wants things to work on Opera. They should go back to terminal apps if they don't actually want to do GUIs properly.
That doesn't strike me as an apples-to-apples comparison (no pun intended). Windows only really changes design as part of the major release cycle, and provides detailed style guides well in advance; OSX is even stricter, changes even less, and even now allows just a single toggle between light and dark mode.
The top level complaint is about distros injecting whole new stylesheets, which is a radically different thing. It's not making sites that only work with Opera, it's politiely asking Chrome not to override your CSS with an arbitrary replacement of their own devising.